Cannot import CR2

Question

I recently upgraded to Lightroom 3 from version 2.6. Along with upgrading Lightroom I installed Photoshop CS5. I am on a Windows computer, 64bit, Windows Vista. I am now unable to import my CR2 files using lightroom. I am given the error of the files not being able to be imported because the file type cannot be read. I have tried CR2 files from my Canon 7D and my Canon T1i. Neither camera's files can be imported. I was able to import my Lightroom catalog from 2.6 into 3. Lightroom is able to read and do everything just fine with my old files. I am just not able to import anything new. I checked for updates and everything seems to be up to date. I don't know if it makes a difference but I still have Lightroom 2.6 still installed on my computer along with Lightroom 3. What do I need to do to be able to import my files? Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

MikeH_Schaumburg_IL wrote:
I have tried doing the additional following things.
Went into LR3 Preferences, General Tab, I now checked the previously unchecked box for Import Options - "Show import dialog when a memory card is detected".
Connected the Canon XTi directly with a cable to the laptop computer.  Note that Canon's information said that Picture Transfer Protocol is automatically used when the XTi is directly connected to a computer, so I did not need to change anything in the camera's menu for communications choices (there is no communication menu in fact).  I selected one image and copied it to the laptop desktop.  Tried to import it into LR3 but got the error message "Could not copy a file to the requested location."  While in LR3, I changed the location of where the file would be copied into; tried 5 different folders, but kept getting the same error message.
With the card reader connected via USB port on the laptop, I copied one image file to the desktop, and then tried importing into LR3.  Got the error message "Could not copy a file to the requested location."
I am at a loss as what to do at this point.  The problem started happening after doing an upgrade to LR3.  As I mentioned before, I was successful in importing images from the Epson 7000 into LR2 and could see the images in LR2.  A week later I upgraded to LR3 and did the move of the Epson 7000 imported images to the correct folder (did the movement using LR3 method).  At this point, I cannot do any imports into LR3 or LR2, no matter what choices that I have tried. 
If I need to, I would uninstall LR2, uninstall LR3, and then install LR3.  Would that be the choice to do at this time?  If yes, what precautions should be done to ensure the catalogs are not damaged or erased, or will the catalogs still remain untouched during the uninstalls and reinstall?
MikeH
Mike,
I'm on a Mac, so some things are different, but I thought on a Windows machine, when an upgrade was done, LR replaced the prior version, so I'm just not sure if there is an issue there.  Did you try to bring any of these images into CS5 via ACR?  Does that work?  Let's narrow this down to a LR issue or something else perhaps.
Once you brought everything into LR 3 it created the new version of the catalog based on your old one.  Unless you've also got a LR2 version of the catalog still around, you can't go back to LR 2.  Does LR 3 import anything, e.g. a JPEG file or a DNG saved from CS5?  Judging by what you're saying I'm thinking it may not.
If you want to eliminate whether or not the issue is associated with the catalog that was created, open LR and create a new and different catalog (name it anything you want.. e.g. TestCatalog) and try importing into that one.  If that works, then something happened during the process of creating the new catalog from the old.
As far as trying the uninstall route, just make sure you have done backups of any catalogs you have and if you want to make doubly sure, make a copy of those.
Lastly, you should be able to import directly from the card reader unless there is some odd conflict there.
Jay S.